Not a proper nest today, the sun is making my little desktop nook snuggly so I’ve got more of a throne vibe going on with a faux fur throw and cushions galore, which I am fine with.
But I’ve been trying to really explain why I am working so much on making what is really a personal pattern book able to be used by anyone whether whole or in part.
Going through the extant tailoring and dressmaking manuals that cover a few hundred years? Gatekeeping and barriers galore! But it’s still possible to take those works and poke holes in them.
One example is that many books from the 1860s-1880s allow for personalisation at the top of bust darts, but not at the bottom. So a broader bust was adjusted through darts that were on a more oblique angle than a narrower.
So I’m trying to express how the idealised figure was adapted for real bodies, but without the baggage so many of these instructions come with.
A big yikes to so much of those ~500years of writing.